1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a cooperative work supporting method, for supporting appropriate participation by a group to a cooperative work in a group word environment (hereinafter called session), and a system therefor.
2. Related Background Art
The cooperative work by a group of plural persons is recently becoming popular, owing to the commercialization of high-performance computers and the advancement in the scattered calculation softwares. In the conventional cooperative work, however, the participation rate (level of participation of the individual person or terminal to the cooperative work) has not been utilized.
This is because, in the monofunctional cooperative work system such as the television conference system, plural cooperative works to not take place in parallel manner but the participants are always concentrated on a certain cooperative work, such as the conference. For this reason, in case of displaying the participants, it is customary to transfer and display the image entered from the table-top camera of each participant, without any modification. Also no adjustment is made on the participation rate.
In recent years, however, there is being developed a situation where a person participates in plural cooperative works, as the cooperative work by a group of plural persons can be realized on a computer system. Under such situation, the evaluation of the participation rate of each person in each cooperative work is an important factor in executing such cooperative work. Unless such evaluation is appropriately made and is utilized in the cooperative work, the proceeding of the work cannot be managed properly.
The absence of evaluation of the participation rate to the cooperative work leads to the following drawbacks:
1) The interest of the participant to the cooperative work cannot be understood; PA1 2) In case of decision for example by voting, it cannot be discriminated whether such action has been completed; PA1 3) It cannot be discriminated whether the provided real-time data have been received by the intended recipient; PA1 4) It cannot be discriminated whether the remark has been received by the other participants; and PA1 5) The participant cannot understand his role or position in the cooperative work.